Context-aware systems and methods, location-aware systems and methods, context-aware vehicles and methods of operating the same, and location-aware vehicles and methods of operating the same

ABSTRACT

In various embodiments, a context or location service module, implemented in software, determines a vehicle context or a vehicle location based upon information that it receives from various context providers or location providers respectively. Software executing on a vehicle&#39;s computer can then cause one or more applications that are associated with a vehicle computer to be modified in a manner that changes their behavior.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of and claims priority to U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 09/746,923, filed on Dec. 22, 2000, the disclosureof which is incorporated by reference herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to generally to the area of context-awarecomputing or ubiquitous computing.

BACKGROUND

The World Wide Web (WWW) was created to make content available from anysource in any location around the world. Users of the Web are able togenerally access a seemingly infinite number of resources via the Web.The Web has been highly successful in this regard. Yet, with theevolution of the Web, certain needs remain largely unmet. Specifically,people continue to have a need to access information that has acontextual aspect to it. That is, often times, individuals will findthemselves in a computing environment that carries with it a certaincontext. Yet, the context of the environment cannot be easilyincorporated into the present computing environment. As an example,consider the context of location. People generally have a need to accessinformation, data, resources and the like, that have geographicdimensions to them. For example, individuals may desire to takeadvantage of services or products that are close in proximity to wherethey currently are located. In this regard, it is desirable tounderstand the individual's contextual location so that services, goodsand the like can be made available to the individual. As “e-Commerce”continues to grow in importance, the necessity of bringing people,places, services and goods together in an efficient manner will becomecritically important.

To date, many attempts have been made to bring people, places, servicesand goods together. These various attempts have generally approached theproblem from different directions in an often times incompatible manner.As an example, consider the context of location. Some services haveattempted to bring people and services together by defining largedatabases that maintain information about the services. For example, alist of restaurants may be maintained in a web accessible database whereeach restaurant is associated with a zip code in which the restaurant islocated. When a user desires to locate a particular restaurant, theymight simply enter the zip code where they are located to see a list ofcorresponding restaurants in that zip code. From the list ofrestaurants, they might be able to select one or two restaurants ofinterest. This approach is undesirable for a number of reasons. First,the operation of the system is dependent upon a central server that isresponsible for receiving user queries and executing the queries toreturn the information to the user. In the event the server fails, sotoo does the service. In addition, this particular service might besuited to finding restaurants, but possibly not other businesses. Inaddition, the granularity with which the results are returned to theuser may foist some of the search burden on the user (i.e. the user getsa list of restaurants in a nearby zip code, but has to further explorethe list to select which ones are of interest). Further, the list ofrestaurants may include some restaurants that are blocked by some typeof a physical barrier (i.e. a river, mountain, etc.) that makes thedistance, as the crow flies, unroutable.

Providers of services and products want to be connected to nearbyend-users. End-users want to consume these services and goods at theclosest and most convenient location. Acquiring the services of adentist or a plumber that lives somewhere “out on the net” is notappropriate if you need them to fill a cavity or unclog a sink. Lookingfor the nearest hotdog while in a stadium requires you to stay in thestadium.

There is an unsolved need to be able to create context-aware computingin which computing devices can participate in their particular context.In specific circumstances, there are needs to provide relationalposition awareness among physical locations in both public and privateviews of the world. To date, however, there is no one standardized viewof the world that would unlock the potential of context-aware computing.Context-aware computing is much more than just positionawareness—although this is a very big field in and of itself.

This invention arose out of concerns associated with developing astandardized, context-aware infrastructure and related systems to unlockthe potential of context-aware computing.

SUMMARY

Context-aware systems and methods, location-aware systems and methods,context-aware vehicles and methods of operating the same, andlocation-aware vehicles and methods of operating the same are described.In various embodiments, a context or location service module,implemented in software, determines a vehicle context or a vehiclelocation based upon information that it receives from various contextproviders or location providers respectively. Software executing on avehicle's computer can then cause one or more applications that areassociated with a vehicle computer to be modified in a manner thatchanges their behavior. The behavior modification is based on thecurrent context or location of the vehicle and thus provides acontext-specific or location-specific user experience. The context orlocation can be ascertained through the use of one or more hierarchicaltree structures that comprises individual nodes. Each node is associatedwith a context or location. The nodes are traversable by the vehicle'ssoftware to ascertain a more complete context or location.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of an exemplary computing device that can be used inaccordance with the described embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram of an exemplary Master World and anexemplary Secondary World in accordance with the described embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary specific view of a Master World and a SecondaryWorld and their relation to one another.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a high level diagram of an exemplary computing devicearchitecture.

FIG. 7 is a somewhat more specific view of an exemplary computing devicearchitecture.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a side elevational view of an exemplary location beacon inaccordance with one embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a diagram of a vehicle computer in accordance with onedescribed embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a more detailed view of portions of the FIG. 12 vehiclecomputer.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram of an exemplary context-aware system inaccordance with one described embodiment.

FIG. 15 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment.

FIG. 16 is a block diagram of an exemplary location-aware system inaccordance with one described embodiment.

FIG. 17 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment.

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment.

FIG. 19 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment.

FIG. 20 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment.

FIG. 21 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment.

FIG. 22 is a diagram of an exemplary system in accordance with onedescribed embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Overview

To provide a standardized solution, embodiments described just belowprovide a uniform definition of the world. The uniform definition isdefined in terms of a hierarchical tree of nodes, where each noderepresents some aspect of the world. Each node is connected to at leastone other node by a branch. An exemplary classification of nodes takesplace on a physical level (e.g. physical locations such as politicalentities, infrastructure entities and public places), as well as anon-physical level (e.g. military APOs). This hierarchical nodalstructure is referred to as the Master World, and is a standardized viewworldwide. Each node of the Master World has various attributesassociated with it that assist in context-aware computing. Exemplaryattributes include a unique ID, name, geographic entity class,latitude/longitude, relative importance, contextual parents to name justa few. The Master World is useful because it can be used to determinethe relative location of a place anywhere in the world and at anydefinable granularity.

Once an individual's location or a place an individual is interested inis determined, various services that reference the location can beoffered to the individual based on their location. That is, value isprovided by the Master World model in the ability to tie services tonodal locations in the Master World.

Building on this concept, two additional concepts add value—the conceptof so-called Secondary Worlds and a “geozone.”

A Secondary World is a powerful computing mechanism whereby individualentities (such as businesses or organizations) can define their ownparticular worlds that need not necessarily conform to the Master Worldview of the world. That is, while the Master World is essentially aphysical hierarchical representation of the world, the Secondary Worldscan be physical and/or logical representations of each individualentities' world view. One particularly useful aspect of the SecondaryWorld is that it links, at least one point, into the Master World. Thus,within any Secondary World, a user's location not only within theSecondary World, but the Master World as well can be determined. Variousservices can be attached to the nodes of the Secondary World. Based upona user's calculated position, these various services that are associatedwith Secondary World nodes can be offered to the user. In addition,because the user's context is determined relative to the Master World,other services that may not be associated with a particular SecondaryWorld can be offered.

A geozone is essentially a spatial indexing mechanism by which theMaster World is subdivided into individual zones. In the describedembodiment, the zones are subdivided through the use of a quadtreealgorithm that is dependent on a density function (although many otherspatial index approaches can also be used). Once a desired density levelis achieved (density might be defined in terms of points of interest perzone), each node on the Master World is assigned a particular geozone.Geozones enable proximity calculations to be computed in a fast andstraight forward manner.

A useful aspect of the Master and Secondary Worlds are that they are“reachable” from various computing devices such as stationary (i.e.desktop devices) or mobile computing devices (i.e. cell phones, laptopsetc.). That is, the Master World (or at least a portion of it) and oneor more Secondary Worlds can be either locally maintained on thecomputing device, or accessed, e.g. via the Web or some other mechanism,so that a user can derive their context. For example, the SecondaryWorld can be downloaded onto the computing device so that a user canderive their context within the Secondary World. Once a user's contextis determined from the Master World and one or more Secondary Worlds, avarious robust collection of context-aware solutions become available tothe user. For example, specific Secondary World services can be offeredor Master World services can be offered. Additionally, services fromother Secondary Worlds might also be offered since the user's locationmay be known (or made known) to these other Secondary Worlds. In thisway, the Master World can link two or more Secondary Worlds together.

Another aspect is that the described embodiments harness the computingpower of each computing device in determining the device's location.Here, by virtue of having the Master World and one or more SecondaryWorlds reachable by the device (and possibly locally maintained on thedevice), the device itself determines its own context.

One embodiment provides a client side device that is configured toutilize the context-aware structures that are discussed above, i.e. theMaster and one or more Secondary Worlds. The Master World or a portionthereof can be locally available on the device or can be accessible atanother location, e.g. via the Web. In this embodiment, the clientdevice has a location service embodied thereon. The described locationservice is a software module that can determine the location of thedevice and can answer queries from various applications (eitherexecuting on the device or off the device). The location servicedetermines the location of the device by using the Master World and oneor more Secondary Worlds. The applications query the location servicethrough one or more Application Program Interfaces (APIs) or Events toget location information that is used by the applications to render aservice.

The location service makes use of one or more location providers thatconvey information to the device. This information can be informationthat is specific to the location provider, or can be information thatcan be mapped directly into a node of the Master World or SecondaryWorlds. Exemplary location providers can include Global PositioningService (GPS) providers, cell phone providers (cell providers),Bluetooth providers, a user interface provider and the like. Thelocation providers provide information that gives some aspect of adevice's current location. This information is used by the locationservice to ascertain the location of the device.

One particularly advantageous feature of the client device is a standardor common location provider interface. The location provider interfaceenables the various location providers to provide information to thelocation service so that the location service can use the information todetermine its location. Essentially, the multiple location providerinterface is a common interface that enables multiple different locationproviders to provide location information (or hints) about location to alocation service that is on a device. The location providers can providethe location information constantly, at intervals, or when polled by thedevice. The location information can be provided with confidence andaccuracy estimates to enable the location service to evaluate therelative quality of the information before it is used. The variousproviders also have the ability to self-monitor themselves which assistsin the providers' ability to intelligently convey information to thelocation service. By having a common interface, the collection oflocation providers is dynamically extensible—that is location providerscan be added or removed from the collection of location providerswithout any interference of the functionality performed by the locationservice or device. The location providers can be added or removed whilethe device is operating. This is particularly useful in accommodatinglocation providers that are developed in the future. In this particularembodiment, two levels of abstraction are provided i.e. (1) the providerinterface that receives information from the location providers and (2)the API/events layer that enables applications to get at the variousinformation.

One focus of this embodiment is a device that can collect contextinformation (e.g. location information) from a variety of differentsources, determine the device's current context from that information,and provide the current context at some level to one or moreapplications that can use the device's context to render a service orenable the device to participate in its context environment.

In the described embodiment, the device receives location information orhints about its location. This information is collated and mapped by thelocation service into a node in the Master World and/or Secondary World.The hierarchical trees can then be traversed to determine the device'saccurate location in both the Secondary World and the Master World. Atthis point, the device has determined its context. The information thatis collected can be subject to arbitration to ensure that only highlytrusted information is used to determine context. The locationinformation can be cached to provide “current location information”which, for a definable period of time will be accurate to some degree.Thus, if for some reason other location providers are unavailable, thecache can be used to ascertain location.

Once a device's location is determined, the device can apply a securitypolicy to the information. Once this is done, the device can begin toanswer queries from various applications.

One aspect of the described embodiment is a “favorite locations” aspectin which the device can be automatically configured, when it determinesits context, so that it can adjust to the different locations.

Further, various types of location providers can convey different typesof information. For example, a so-called “thin provider” provideslocation information that is translated by the location service into theappropriate node information. A so-called “thick provider” includeslogic that takes location information and provides it in a form that canmap directly into the Master World or Secondary World.

In another embodiment location translation services are provided thatare directed to determining, as accurately as possible, the context orlocation of the device. In this embodiment, information is received fromthe various location providers. This information includes location,accuracy and confidence (all of which are provided by the locationprovider), trust (which is assigned to a location provider by the deviceor a user) and a timestamp (which helps to age the locationinformation). The location translation processing involves determiningwhich of the location providers are valid and active. The locationproviders can be ranked in accordance with the confidence and trustlevels. This defines an ordered list of location providers. Provision ismade for a situation in which all of the location providers may goinactive. If so, a “current location” is used as a location providerwhose confidence decreases over time.

In the event that information from two or more of the location providersconflicts, then measures can be taken to use information for which thereis a higher level of trust. The information that is provided by all ofthe location providers (assuming no conflict) can then be used todetermine a tree structure and a node's entity ID (EID). The tree mightbe the Master World and the EID is a node on the Master World. The treemight also be a Secondary World and the EID (or location uniqueindentifier or “LUID”) is a node on the Secondary World. Once thisinformation is collected, complete location information can bedetermined by simply traversing the tree(s). Once a device's location isdetermined, a cache can be updated with the current location (includinga time stamp).

In another embodiment, privacy issues in the context-aware computingenvironment are addressed. In this embodiment, the location service hasacquired location information that pertains to the location of aparticular device. A privacy manager determines what level ofinformation to provide to applications that might request theinformation. The privacy manager can reside on the computing deviceitself, or can be proxied by a trusted third party.

According to this embodiment, a scale of privacy levels are defined.Each level is defined to include more or less specific information aboutthe location of a particular device. A user is able to assign a privacylevel to entities that might request location information. Additionally,each node of the Master World and a Secondary World can have a privacylevel associated with it. When a query from an application is received,the privacy manager first determines who the query is from and theprivacy level associated with the application or entity. The privacymanager then evaluates one or more of the Master World and the SecondaryWorld to find a node that has a corresponding privacy level. When acorresponding node is found, information at that particular granularityis provided to the requesting application or entity.

In another embodiment systems and methods of providing a locationprovider in the form of a location beacon are described. In thisembodiment, a location beacon is provided that can be mounted in variousareas (public/private areas) to beacon the location to any computingdevices within transmission range. The information that is transmittedenables a device to determine its location or context. The locationbeacon can transmit information that is specific to the location servicethat uses the information. Transmitted information can include anEID/URL pair, and a LUID/URL pair. The EID gives the node identificationof a node in the Master World; and, the associated URL gives a protocolto communicate with the Master World. The URL might, for instance, linkto a server that can provide additional context information that usesthe EID. The LUID indicates a node on a Secondary World that correspondsto a current location; and the URL gives a protocol to communicate withthe Secondary World. For example, the URL can link with a server that ishosting the Secondary World. This server can then be queried to discovermore information about the Secondary World (i.e. Secondary World treestructure, location of associated resources, etc.) With the EID and LUID(along with the URLs), a device can now traverse the Master World orSecondary World to determine its location. Various technologies can beused to implement the beacon (wireless, RF, IR). The beacon can be a“program once” device to deter tampering. Programmable beacons can,however, be provided. Security can also be provided in the form of averifiable signature that is provided with the beacon information toassure the veracity of the transmitted information.

A useful context-aware computing aspect of the beacon is the concept of“location-enabled access”. That is, in addition to (or separately from)receiving location information, a beacon can transmit code downloadpointers that enable smart devices to access software code that allowsthe device to participate in its current context.

Exemplary Computing System

In the context of this document, the term “computing device” is used torefer generally to any type of computing device. Characteristics ofexemplary computing devices are that they typically include one or moreprocessors, computer-readable media (such as storage devices andmemory), and software executing on the one or more processors that causethe processors to implement a programmed functionality. In particularembodiments, implementation takes place in the context of mobilecomputing devices (e.g. laptop computers and the like), and/or hand-heldcomputing devices (e.g. palm PCs, wireless telephones and the like).

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram that constitutes but one example of acomputing device that is suitable for use in connection with thedescribed embodiments. It is to be understood that portions of theillustrated computing device can be incorporated in one or more of thecomputing devices (e.g. palm PCs, wireless telephones, etc.) with whichparticular embodiments are envisioned for use.

Computer 130 includes one or more processors or processing units 132, asystem memory 134, and a bus 136 that couples various system componentsincluding the system memory 134 to processors 132. The bus 136represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures,including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, anaccelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of avariety of bus architectures. The system memory 134 includes read onlymemory (ROM) 138 and random access memory (RAM) 140. A basicinput/output system (BIOS) 142, containing the basic routines that helpto transfer information between elements within computer 130, such asduring start-up, is stored in ROM 138.

Computer 130 further includes a hard disk drive 144 for reading from andwriting to a hard disk (not shown), a magnetic disk drive 146 forreading from and writing to a removable magnetic disk 148, and anoptical disk drive 150 for reading from or writing to a removableoptical disk 152 such as a CD ROM or other optical media. The hard diskdrive 144, magnetic disk drive 146, and optical disk drive 150 areconnected to the bus 136 by an SCSI interface 154 or some otherappropriate interface. The drives and their associated computer-readablemedia provide nonvolatile storage of computer-readable instructions,data structures, program modules and other data for computer 130.Although the exemplary environment described herein employs a hard disk,a removable magnetic disk 148 and a removable optical disk 152, itshould be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other types ofcomputer-readable media which can store data that is accessible by acomputer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital videodisks, random access memories (RAMs), read only memories (ROMs), and thelike, may also be used in the exemplary operating environment.

A number of program modules may be stored on the hard disk 144, magneticdisk 148, optical disk 152, ROM 138, or RAM 140, including an operatingsystem 158, one or more application programs 160, other program modules162, and program data 164. A user may enter commands and informationinto computer 130 through input devices such as a keyboard 166 and apointing device 168. Other input devices (not shown) may include amicrophone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like.These and other input devices are connected to the processing unit 132through an interface 170 that is coupled to the bus 136. A monitor 172or other type of display device is also connected to the bus 136 via aninterface, such as a video adapter 174. In addition to the monitor,personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices(not shown) such as speakers and printers.

Computer 130 commonly operates in a networked environment using logicalconnections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer176. The remote computer 176 may be another personal computer, a server,a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, andtypically includes many or all of the elements described above relativeto computer 130, although only a memory storage device 178 has beenillustrated in FIG. 1. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 1include a local area network (LAN) 180 and a wide area network (WAN)182. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices,enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets, and the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, computer 130 is connected tothe local network 180 through a network interface or adapter 184. Whenused in a WAN networking environment, computer 130 typically includes amodem 186 or other means for establishing communications over the widearea network 182, such as the Internet. The modem 186, which may beinternal or external, is connected to the bus 136 via a serial portinterface 156. In a networked environment, program modules depictedrelative to the personal computer 130, or portions thereof, may bestored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated thatthe network connections shown are exemplary and other means ofestablishing a communications link between the computers may be used.

Generally, the data processors of computer 130 are programmed by meansof instructions stored at different times in the variouscomputer-readable storage media of the computer. Programs and operatingsystems are typically distributed, for example, on floppy disks orCD-ROMs. From there, they are installed or loaded into the secondarymemory of a computer. At execution, they are loaded at least partiallyinto the computer's primary electronic memory. The invention describedherein includes these and other various types of computer-readablestorage media when such media contain instructions or programs forimplementing the steps described below in conjunction with amicroprocessor or other data processor. The invention also includes thecomputer itself when programmed according to the methods and techniquesdescribed below.

For purposes of illustration, programs and other executable programcomponents such as the operating system are illustrated herein asdiscrete blocks, although it is recognized that such programs andcomponents reside at various times in different storage components ofthe computer, and are executed by the data processor(s) of the computer.

Defining the World

One of the problems to date with attempting to solve the context-awarecomputing problem is that every proposed solution has its own approach,data structures, processes and the like. There is little if anystandardization between the various approaches. In the describedembodiment, standardization is achieved at the foundational level bydefining a universal view of the Earth. That is, a universallyacceptable definition of the Earth is proposed and is useable in variouscomputing scenarios to enable context-dependent computing. In thisdocument, a specific example of context-dependent computing is given inthe form of location dependent computing. It is to be understood thatthis constitutes but one example of a context in which the variousembodiments discussed below can be employed. Other “contexts” caninclude, any information that can fit into a hierarchical structureincluding, without limitation, role/personnel in an organization, devicecategorizations, current activity, current environment, active devicesand the like.

The Master World

A Master World is defined as a politically correct and publicly acceptedhierarchical tree structure that catalogs physical location orgeographic divisions of the Earth. The Master World is defined in such away that many different classes of political, administrative andgeographic entities across the entire Earth are included. Areas ofpolitical contention are accounted for by presenting a view of the worldbased on the language/locale of the computing device.

FIG. 2 shows an exemplary hierarchical tree structure 200 thatrepresents a portion of the Master World. The Master World containsmultiple nodes 202, with each node representing some type of geographicdivision (e.g. political or natural entity) of the Earth. In theillustrated example, the nodes of the Master World are arranged in thefollowing groups: (1) political or natural entities (e.g. continents,countries, oceans, states, counties, cities and the like); (2)infrastructure entities (e.g. postal codes, area codes, time zones andthe like); (3) public place entities (e.g. parks, malls, airports,stadiums, and the like); and (4) non-physical entities (military postalcode regions, vacation regions, affiliate coverage areas of televisionnetworks that can be geographically discontinuous, and the like).

In the FIG. 2 example, the top node of the tree structure represents theEarth. Each node underneath the top node represents a geographicaldivision of the Earth. In this example, none of the nodes have anassociation with any businesses or services. That is, there is adistinction between node entities that are part of the Master World andnon-geographic places where activities take place. Though the MasterWorld includes nodes for public places (i.e. airports, malls, etc), itdoes not include individual listings of businesses or service providers.Each node is uniquely identified by an ID (EID or entity ID). Inaddition to the unique EIDs, a URL is associated with the tree structureand provides a context for the tree structure as will become apparentbelow.

As an example, consider the following: Seattle-Tacoma InternationalAirport (SeaTac) will be included in the Master World, but references toindividual airline business locations at SeaTac might be “leaves” on thetree that are tagged by the SeaTac Airport EID (see “Secondary World”section and the Table below). Similarly, the Seattle Center might be anode on the Master World, while the Seattle Arts Festival, Bumpershoot,the Seattle Sonics NBA Team, and the Seattle Center Starbucks CoffeeShop might be tagged with the Seattle Center EID. As another example,the Master World also contains nodes for all Interstate (motorway)exits. For example, the I-90, Exit 109, Washington is a node in theMaster World. The Best Western Inn located at 1700 Canyon Road inEllensburg, Washington might be tagged with the EID of this Exit.

Thus, the Master World provides a uniform way of defining locations. Theuniform location definitions can then be universally used to assignattributes to goods or services. Whenever a computing device determinesits location to correspond to a particular uniform location definition,it can take advantage of the location-dependent goods or services thatshare the uniform location definition. The Master World is usefulbecause it is a standardized view of the world. Its accuratestandardized geographic dimension attribution can be easily accessed byboth providers and consumers. Services and product providers (or thirdparties such as search engines, network and yellow-page databasedirectories) can use the nodes of the Master World by assigning astandardized persistent geographic reference to all commerce locationsor points of interest. These commerce locations or points of interestcan be considered as “leaves” on the tree structure.

In the illustrated example, the nodes of the Master World have one ormore attributes that facilitate its use. Exemplary attributes aredescribed in the table immediately below:

Attribute Description Entity ID The EID is a unique ID for each node.(EID) No two nodes have the same EID. Name The name is defined in termsof the neutral ground truth (NGT) name. The NGT name supports variouslanguage translations for entity names as appropriate (e.g. PacificOcean, Pazifischer Ozean, Oceano Pacifico, etc.) Geographical The GEC isa geographical classification Entity Class of each node. An exemplaryGEC (GEC) is discussed below in the “Geozone” section. Latitude Thehorizontal coordinate position on the globe (i.e. the coordinateposition of the node's centroid) Longitude The vertical coordinateposition on the globe (i.e. the coordinate position of the node'scentroid) Relative The geographic importance of an Importance entity inreference to other entities in the same region. Value from 1 to 256(e.g. New York City = 3, Los Angeles = 4, and Omaha = 5 even thoughOmaha is much smaller but almost as important in relation to surroundingpopulated places) Contextual The parents of the parent/childrelationship Parent(s) for each node. Multiple parents are supported(e.g. Redmond is a child of King County, Area Code 425, the Pacific TimeZone, and the MSNBC affiliate KING TV). Source The source of origin forthe record (e.g. Microsoft or a specified data vendor) Start Date Datewhen the node information was first valid End Date Date when the nodeinformation was last valid (retired zip codes, breakup of countries)Modification Records date changes that are made Date tot eh recordrelating to retirement or updates to any fields Status Active, lashed(links duplicate nodes together), pending or retired

The attributes listed above constitute exemplary attributes only. Otherattributes that are different from and/or additional to those referencedabove could be used. A few exemplary entity or node records that employthe above attributes are shown below:

Entity ID 24948 (EID) Name Pacific Ocean, Pazifischer Ozean, OceanoPacifico, etc. Geographical 138/Ocean Entity Class (GEC) Latitude   0(+000° 00′ 00″) Longitude  −170 (−170° 00′ 00″) Relative   1 ImportanceContextual World Parent(s) Source MSFT GeoUnit Start Date  0/0/00 EndDate  0/0/00 Modification  01/18/00 Date Status Active Entity ID 27490(EID) Name Redmond Geographical  78/non-capital town Entity Class (GEC)Latitude   47.6768303 (+047° 40′ 36″) Longitude  −122.1099625 (−122° 06′35″) Relative  107 Importance Contextual 1. King, second level Parent(s)  [Washington, United   States] 2. Puget Sound-Seattle,   travel region  [Washington, United   States] Source MSFT GeoUnit Start Date  0/0/00End Date  0/0/00 Modification  01/18/00 Date Status Active

The Master World also serves as a repository of common denominator linksbetween itself and various “Secondary Worlds” and as a conduit thatconnects Secondary Worlds to other Secondary Worlds. Content, serviceand device providers can use the Master World to associate theirpublicly available offerings with a geographic location and thecorresponding multiple branch hierarchical structure. This location willbe associated with a single entity within the tree structure therebyallowing geographic and time/distance calculations and the necessaryparent/child relationship navigation.

The Master World Index (Geozones)

By definition, the Master World provides a hierarchical structure ofentities (nodes) that cover the entire globe. Upward navigation withinthe hierarchy is quite natural. Efficient navigation downward requiresgeographic proximity awareness. Additionally, there are possiblescenarios that will require jumping from branch to branch in order tosuccessfully return values in a query, or for more accurate calculationsof distances to close “leaves” attached to nodes other than the originalsource node. The Master World makes use of an index scheme that canidentify peer level nodes by virtue of the geographical proximity. Thisindexing scheme makes use of a quad tree algorithm to define so-called“geozones.”

A quadtree is essentially a spatial index that breaks coverage intohomogeneous cells of regularly decreasing size. Each quadrant of thetree has up to four children. The quadtree segmentation process cancontinue until the entire map is partitioned based on many different endresult criteria including the density of the number of items (e.g.points of interest) in each quad. The approach provides a form ofspatial index that accelerates spatial selection and contentidentification.

To complete the spatial indexing scheme to provide each node with adefined geozone, a quadtree algorithm is applied to the nodes and can bebased upon a desired density of, for example, points of interest thatare to occur in any one zone. Once all of the zones have been defined,each zone is given a unique ID (e.g. top/left and bottom/right Latitudeand Longitude pairs). Each of the nodes of the Master World is thenassigned a zone in which it is located. Quadtree algorithms are knownand will be appreciated by those of skill in the art.

The Master World Location

As can be appreciated, having a uniform standardized representation ofthe world in the form of a hierarchical traversable tree structure cangreatly facilitate the manner to which context-dependent, and morespecifically, location-dependent goods and services can be linked.

In the described embodiment, a computing device has access to at least aportion of the Master World. For example, the computing device can havethe Master World saved in an internal storage device, it can comprisepart of the computing device's operating system, or the device mightaccess the Master World via a network medium such as the Internet. Withthe Master World tree structure being accessible to each computingdevice, each device has the power to determine its own context ornode-referenced location. That is, the computing device can determine,through software it is executing, its particular location, i.e. node.Once the computing device determines an associated node, it can simplytraverse the tree to ascertain its complete location.

For example, if a computing device determines that it is currentlylocated at a node that corresponds to the City of Redmond, it cantraverse the Master World tree structure to ascertain that it is in theState of Washington, Country of The United States, on the continent ofNorth America. By ascertaining its precise location, the computingdevice (or its user) is now in a position to take advantage oflocation-dependent services that might be offered. This particular modelis a tremendous improvement over current models that utilize a centralserver to ascertain location for a number of different devices. In thatmodel, each device (or user) provides information about its location(e.g. perhaps the user enters the zip code or city that the device iscurrently in) and might enter a query to find, for example, a McDonald'srestaurant in his zip code. The server then takes this information andmight, for example, tell the user about the location of all of theMcDonald's restaurants within that zip code or city. If the serversfails in this model, then none of the computing devices can takeadvantage of its services. In the present model, each computing deviceis self-sustaining. Each can determine its own location, andaccordingly, each device can take advantage of location-dependentservices. For example, if the computing device understands that it islocated on a particular node of the Master World, then it can executequeries to find a McDonald's that has an EID that corresponds to theparticular node in which the computing device is located. Particularrobustness is provided through the use of the above-described geo-zones.The geo-zones enable proximate geographic divisions to be quicklysearched in an efficient manner. For example, if an individual islooking for the nearest Kinko's to make copies and none are located inthe geo-zone that corresponds to the node in which the computing deviceis located, then adjacent geo-zones can be quickly searched.

Secondary Worlds

In the described embodiment, the concept of a Secondary World is used toprovide support for additional context. A secondary world might bedefined by a third party organization or company and contains nodes thatcomprise physical and/or logical entities that are unique to thatorganization. The nodes of the Secondary World may or may not have muchcontext outside of the particular organization that defined theSecondary World, since a secondary world could be made either public orprivate. The Secondary Worlds do not duplicate the Master World, butrather supplement it in a unique, organization specific manner. Whilethe Master World is defined to be a widely accepted standard, eachSecondary World can be a widely variant representation of anorganization's proprietary view of the world. In the describedembodiment, each Secondary World has at least one node that is linkedwith a node of the Master World. This gives the Secondary World acontext or location in the Master World. Also note that in some contextapplications, several secondary worlds may be accessed, each providingadditional context specific pieces of location data.

FIG. 2 shows an exemplary Secondary World 204 that comprises a pluralityof nodes 206. Each of the nodes 206 constitutes a physical or logicalentity. For example, the nodes can constitute a company, its divisions,regions campuses, buildings, floors in various buildings and rooms onvarious floors. At least one of the nodes is linked with a node of theMaster World. The nodes of the Secondary World can have the sameattributes as the nodes of the Master World.

As an example of a Secondary World, consider that Boeing might define aSecondary World that includes a list of entities that are important toits employees. The root entity would be “Boeing Corp.” and its childrenmight be company divisions (St. Louis Military Division, Everett Plant,Corporate HQ, etc.). Further down the tree structure, individual nodesmight be defined to represent individual buildings (Hanger 12), officeswithin this building (Office 1001), building areas (Southwesternquadrant of hanger 12), etc. Each entity or node has a unique identifier(Local Unique ID or “LUID”) and a URL that is associated with the treeon which the node occurs. The URL uniquely identifies the SecondaryWorld tree structure so that a user within that world can determine howto interact with the world. This aspect is discussed below in moredetail. Boeing can then use the LUIDs to associate equipment, services,departments or even personnel to a physical or logical location.

As a more concrete example, consider FIG. 3 which shows an exemplaryportion of the Master World 300 and a Secondary World 302. Master World300 includes the following nodes: World, United States, Washington,Redmond, and Zip=98052. The exemplary Secondary World 302 is ahierarchical tree structure that has been defined by MicrosoftCorporation and includes the following nodes: Microsoft, Redmond Campus,1 Microsoft Way, Building 26, 3^(rd) floor, Conference Room 3173,Building 24, 2^(nd) floor, Conference Room 1342. In this example, theSecondary World 302 “touch points” into the Master World from theRedmond node. In this example, a video projector is shown as beingassociated with the node “Conference room 1342”. Here, the videoprojector is not a node in the secondary world. Rather, the videoprojector is an item in some other resource discovery service (e.g. theactive directory) and includes a location attribute that is a pointer to“Conference room 1342.” There may be times, however, when nodes can becreated in the worlds to represent the location of key services—the nodethemselves, however, would not represent the services.

Like the Master World, the Secondary World is advantageously accessibleto a user's computing device. It could, for example, bedownloaded—completely or partially—and stored on a storage device andaccessed when needed. It might be downloaded for a one time use only.The Secondary World enables the computing device to ascertain itscontext within the Secondary World. In this example, the computingdevice would, by using the Secondary World, compute its location withinthe Secondary World. The computing device can do this by traversing thetree structure from the node in which it is currently located to theroot node. This would, for example, give the computing device (and hencethe user) a complete Secondary World context. Once the Secondary Worldlocation is known, the user is in a position to take advantage of goodsor services that are associated with the nodes of the Secondary World.That is, once the computing device determines its Secondary Worldcontext, it is ready to become an active participant in the SecondaryWorld.

Tremendous value can be achieved by associating goods or services withthe individual nodes of the Secondary World. For example, ConferenceRoom 1342 has a video projector associated with it. That is, thelocation of the video projector is in Conference Room 1342. Assume thatan individual in Conference Room 3173 has a presentation that requiresthe use of the video projector such as the one located in ConferenceRoom 1342. Normally, an individual would have no way of ascertaining thelocation of the video projector other than perhaps physically callingover to the building to check whether there is a video projectoravailable. In this example, because the user's computing device is ableto ascertain its location within the Secondary World, it is able tolocate the video projector in Conference Room 1342. It would do this bysimply executing software that traverses the Secondary World treestructure to find the resource of interest.

Note also that because there is a link into the Master World, thecomputing device is able to derive it context (location) within bothworlds. This enables the computing device, and hence the user, to takeadvantage of goods and services that are associated with the SecondaryWorld, as well as participate in location-dependent services that areconsumable based upon the user's location in the Master World.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment. The steps described just below areimplemented by a computing device which, in the illustrated example, isa hand-held mobile computing device.

Step 400 accesses first and second hierarchical tree structures that areresident on a computer-readable media. In this example, the treestructures might be stored on the device or might be accessible via anetwork such as the Internet. An exemplary first tree structure is theMaster World and an exemplary second tree structure is a SecondaryWorld. Alternately, the tree structures could both be Secondary Worlds.Once the tree structures have been accessed by the device, step 402traverses multiple nodes of the tree structures to derive the context ofthe computing device. In this example, the computing device receivesinformation that informs it as to its location at a node of one of thetrees. This information can come to the computing device in any suitableway, e.g. a user can enter the information through a User Interface (UI)or the location might be broadcast to the computing device by anothercomputing device (e.g. through the use of Bluetooth technology orUniversal Plug and Play (UpnP). Specific examples of how thisinformation can be conveyed to the computing device are given below inmore detail. Regardless of how this information is conveyed to thecomputing device, once the computing device has the information, itexecutes software that traverses one or both of the tree structures toderive its context which, in this example, is the device's location.

Defining Secondary Worlds

As was mentioned above, one particularly valuable aspect of thedescribed embodiment is that individual organizations can define theirown Secondary Worlds. This gives the organization a great deal offlexibility in providing goods and services and, more broadly,increasing the efficiency of their organization. In one embodiment, asoftware tool is provided that enables individual organizations todefine and maintain their own Secondary Worlds.

In one embodiment, each secondary world can be uniquely identified as aname space (e.g. an XML namespace). This ensures that any overlap innames between the Secondary World and the Master World will not resultin a collision. As an example, consider the following: the Master Worldmight contain an entity identified as “Chicago” referring the city. ASecondary World that is established by the National BasketballAssociation (NBA) and a different Secondary World that is established bythe Caterpillar Corporation might also have entities named “Chicago”that refer to completely different entities than the Master World's“Chicago.” For example, the NBA's “Chicago” might refer to an NBA marketarea while Caterpillar's “Chicago” might refer to a sales district.Having the namespace separation between the Master and Secondary Worldscan ensure that there not a collision between identically named entitiesbecause each name space is uniquely different from every othernamespace.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method of building acontext-aware data structure. These steps are implemented by a softwaretool that is executing on a computing device.

Step 500 receives input from a source that specifies information thatpertains to physical and/or logical entities. In this example, a systemadministrator might physically enter information about the structure ofthe Secondary World that they desire to define. This information caninclude information about buildings, divisions, conference rooms and thelike. Step 502 then processes the information to define a hierarchicaltree structure that has a context. In this example, the context islocation. It will be appreciated, however, that other contexts could beemployed. Each of the nodes in the hierarchical tree structurerepresents a separate physical or logical entity. Step 504 then links atleast one of the nodes of the hierarchical tree structure with anothertree structure having a context. In this example, this other treestructure can comprise the Master World. Once the tree structures havebeen built and linked, they are ready for traversal in a manner thatenables context to be derived from one or more of the nodes.

Location as a Service

In the above examples, the computing device is able to determine its ownlocation. In the embodiment about to be described, the computing devicedetermines its location by using location information that is providedto it from a number of different sources of information. The device isable to take the information that is provided to it and process theinformation to determine a particular node on one or more hierarchicaltrees. Once the device has done this, it can determine its completelocation which is a useful thing to know particularly when there arelocation-dependent services that can be consumed by the device's user.

FIG. 6 shows a high level diagram of an exemplary computing device 600that comprises, among other components, a context service module 602 andone or more context providers 604. The context service module 602 can beimplemented in any suitable hardware, software, firmware or combinationthereof. In this particular example, the context service module isimplemented in software that is executed by one or more deviceprocessors. The context service module 602 receives context informationfrom one or more context providers 604 and processes the information todetermine a current device context. In this particular example, thedevice context is the device's location. Accordingly, the contextproviders are location providers that provide location information, invarious forms, to the context service module 602 for processing. Thelocation providers 604 receive information from various sources ofcontext information (location information) 606.

In the context of this document, a context provider comprises a softwarecomponent that can either be implemented on the device or off thedevice. The context provider can also include any suitable hardware,firmware or combination thereof. The role of the context providers areto receive information from sources 606 and convey the information tothe context service module 602 so that the context service module canuse the information to determine a current device context.

In the case where the context of the device is the device's location,sources 606 provide various information to the location providers 604that pertains to the device's current location. As an example, thesources of the information can include various information transmitterssuch as a GPS system, cell phone or cell ID, wireless transmitters thattransmit location information, location beacons, 802.11 transmitters andvarious other sources of information. The sources of information canalso include other computing devices that might, for example, providelocation information through Bluetooth technology. In addition, a sourceof information 606 might include a person who, for example, physicallyenters location information into the device 600 so that the device canprocess the information to determine its location.

When the device 600 receives the location information from the sources606, it processes the information with the location providers 604 andprovides the information to the location service module 602. Thelocation service module 602 processes the location information anddetermines a particular node on one or more of the hierarchical treestructures to which it has access which corresponds to its currentlocation. The location service module 602 can then traverse the treestructures to determine a complete location for the device. Once thecomplete location is determined, the device 600 can begin to interactwith one or more applications 608 that can query the device about itsparticular location so that one or more location-dependent services canbe rendered to the device. In this example, the applications 608 areillustrated as being separate from the device. It is to be understood,however, that the applications could be executing on the device, e.g. abrowser application.

As shown, the applications 608 can make calls to the device to ask thedevice where it is located. The device is configured to receive thecalls and respond in an appropriate manner to the application. Once theapplication has the device's location information, it can then renderlocation specific services to the device.

Consider the following example: You are a traveler and have a hand-heldmobile computing device that contains a Master World tree and aSecondary World tree for SeaTac International Airport. You are scheduledto depart on a plane for China from Concourse C. SeaTac InternationalAirport has designed its Secondary World to have the following nodes:“Arrivals”, “Departures”, “Concourses”, “Airlines”, “Gates assigned toAirlines”, and “Gate Location”. When you arrive at the airport, as youenter the airport your computing device receives location informationfrom different sources and with that information your device determinesthat your location is in the Arrivals node. SeaTac International hasbank of servers that are executing applications to assist you while youare in the airport. There are applications that can help you findservices, locate facilities (e.g. coffee shops, restaurants), givedirections (e.g. how to get to your departure gate), update you on thestatus of your flight, and even check you in automatically for yourflight. Consider also that as you walk through the airport your locationchanges. Your computing device, however, can receive continuous locationinformation updates so that it can continue to determine its location asyou move through the airport. At one point, as you pass a Starbuckscoffee shop, your hand held device notifies you that if you purchase alatte at Starbucks and present your hand held device, you will receive a50 cent discount on your latte. In this example, the utility of theSecondary World is demonstrated. By knowing where its particularcustomers are in its facility, SeaTac International is able to provide ahost of services that were not possible before.

Assume further that you are in the airport and your flight is canceled.You must find a place to stay for the night. Accordingly, you wish todetermine the closest Double Tree hotel because you really like the warmchocolate chip cookies they give you when you check in. You execute asearch engine on your computing device to find the nearest Double Treehotel. The search engine application first determines your currentlocation in the Master World as indicated by the EID of the Master Worldnode that corresponds to your location. Executing a search, the searchengine application looks for a Double Tree hotel that has an attributethat includes an EID that matches your EID. If it finds one, it simplyindicates for you the result. If it does not find one with thecorresponding EID, it can use an adjacent geozone to search for a DoubleTree hotel. It may also provide driving directions to the hotel. Thesearch engine application was able to do this because it was able toascertain your location in the Master World. It did this quickly andautomatically with little or no effort from you.

Consider further that as you are driving from the airport to the hotelyou decide that you want to find the nearest Kinko's so that you canprint 100 copies of a presentation that you are to give in the morning.Consider that your hand-held computing device is a cellular phone andthat Sprint is the carrier. Sprint has defined its own Secondary Worldthat might, for example, be designated in terms of cell nets. By virtueof having Sprint's Secondary World on your computing device, you areable to ascertain your location in Sprint's Secondary World and,accordingly, your location in the Master World. Consider that Kinko'salso has a Secondary World that links with the Master World. Byexecuting a search application on your device, you are able to ascertainthe location of the nearest Kinko's as well as driving directionsthereto. All of this is possible because your device has access to theMaster World and one or more Secondary Worlds. In this example, theMaster World provides a mechanism to daisy chain two or more SecondaryWorlds together. This is possible because the Secondary Worlds have atleast one reference or link into the Master World.

Exemplary Device Architecture

FIG. 7 shows computing device 600 in somewhat more detail. In thisparticular embodiment, device 600 comprises an architecture thatincludes the following components: a location service module 602, alocation provider interface 700, an application program interface(API)/Events module 702, a privacy manager 704 a location conversionmodule 706, one or more applications 608 and one or more locationproviders 606. Also included in the architecture is an active directory708, Web service 710, location database 712, and personal places 714.The architecture can be implemented in any suitable hardware, software,firmware or combination thereof. The architecture mentioned above isadvantageous in that it enables each computing device to determine itsown context or location.

Common Location Provider Interface

One particularly advantageous aspect of the described embodiment is thatit employs a common interface 700 that provides a standard interfacethrough which the location providers 606 communicate. By having a commoninterface, the location providers are extensible (to support futureproviders) in that they can be dynamically added or removed from thecollection of location providers. All that is required of a particularlocation provider 606 is that it be written to support the commoninterface.

In this example, there are several location providers 606. Theselocation providers provide location information in different forms. Forexample, a GPS location provider might provide location information thatis GPS specific. Similarly, an IP/Subnet location provider might provideinformation that is specific to an Internet Protocol. A mobile phonelocation provider might provide location information in the form of acell ID. In addition, a location User Interface (UI) might providelocation information in the form of a user entry that specifies a city,street or building. All of the location information that is provided bythe various location providers is processed by the location servicemodule 602 so that a current device location can be determined. Todetermine the current device location, the location service module 602may have to consult with an active directory 708, a Web service 710, ora location database 712. In the illustrated example, the activedirectory 708 might, for example, maintain a secondary world and othernetworking metadata such as subnet and “site” information that can helpdetermine location based on networking connectivity. Web service 710 canhold the master or secondary worlds, the attributes of which can be usedto find location. For example, if a cell phone knows its cell tower ID,then the location provider can query the secondary world to ascertainthe nodes that match that cell tower ID. Location database 712 isbasically a version of the web service that is hosted or cached locally.

Location Providers

As indicate above, the architecture contemplates multiple differentlocation providers that can provide location information to the locationservice module 602. This information can come in many different formsand quality levels. The information is then processed by the locationservice module 602 to determine a current device location. To do this,the service module 602 ascertains from the location information aparticular node ID (EID and/or LUID) and a URL that is associated withthe tree structure with which the node is associated. Once the locationservice module ascertains a node ID, it can then query the treestructure (or more accurately a server that manages the tree structure)using the URL to ascertain more information about the tree structure.For example, if the location service module 602 ascertains a LUID from aparticular Secondary World, it might then query an active directory 708(or an Intranet server—which is another location database) to discoverthe parents and the children of the node. This would then enable thelocation service module to build the Secondary World.

The location providers 606 can provide the location information to thelocation service module 602 in many different ways. For example, somelocation providers 606 may continuously provide information (e.g. theGPS provider may continuously provide GPS coordinates). Alternately, thelocation providers can periodically provide location information such asat specific times or on the occurrence of definable events. For example,a user may define specific times when the location information should beupdated. Alternately, the location information might be updated onlywhen a device's location changes (i.e. a location change event).Additionally, the location providers might provide location informationwhen polled by the location service module 602. For example, thelocation service module 602 can call the location provider interface 700and request location information from one or more of the locationproviders.

One specific location provider 606 is shown as a cache. The cacheprovider essentially maintains a current device context or location.That is, once the location service module 602 has ascertained itscurrent location, it writes this location to a cache. This enables thedevice 600 to ascertain its location with a degree of confidence in theevent all of the other location providers are not able to providelocation information (e.g. the GPS provider may not receive GPSinformation because the GPS transmitter that supplies it with theinformation is unable to contact a requisite number of satellites).

Confidence and Accuracy Parameters

One important and useful feature of the described embodiment is that oneor more of the location providers are configured to assign confidenceparameters and/or accuracy parameters to the information that theyprovide to the location service module 602. Confidence parametersprovide a measure of a provider's confidence in the information that itprovides to the location service module 602. For example, assume that aGPS transmitter must receive information from five or more satellites inorder to provide highly confident information. Assume that only threesatellites are available at the time. The GPS transmitter would thentransmit its information based only on the three satellites. The GPSprovider would then know that the information it receives from the GPStransmitter was based only on three satellites rather than the desiredfive or more. In this case, the GPS provider can set a confidenceparameter on the location information that indicates that it has a lowerconfidence level than if the information were based on the desired fiveor more satellites. In this case, the location service module 602 cantake the confidence parameters for all of the location providers intoaccount when determining the location of the device. This is discussedin more detail below.

With respect to the accuracy parameters, consider that the locationinformation that is received from the location providers is accurate tovarying degrees. Some information may be accurate to within one mile,while other information may be accurate to within 100 feet. The locationproviders are desirably configured to assign accuracy parameters to thelocation information that they provide to the location service module602. The accuracy parameters give the location service module anindication of the accuracy of the information.

When the confidence and accuracy parameters are used by the locationservice module 602, the module can make decisions on how to use thelocation information it receives from each provider. For example, thelocation service module 602 might disregard completely any informationthat has a low confidence parameter. It might, on the other hand, strikea balance between the accuracy of the information and its confidence.For example, the module 602 might be programmed to use information withlower levels of accuracy only when there is a high level of confidencein the information. The module 602 might utilize the parameters toassign weights to the information so that the location is calculated asa weighted function of the confidence and accuracy of the information.

Another use of the confidence parameters is as follows: Assume that thelocation service module has determined a device location and has writtenthat location to a cache. At the time when the location is written to acache, it is assigned perhaps a high confidence level. Assume furtherthat all of the other location providers are unavailable to providelocation information. For a period of time, the location service module602 can use the cache location as a current location and be fairlyconfident that its information is generally accurate. In this case, thelocation service module might assign a linearly decreasing confidencelevel to the information over time so that at some point, it ceases touse the information or informs the user that the information cannot beguaranteed.

Location, Trust, and Timestamp

When the location providers provide their information to the locationservice module 602, the information can include, in addition to theconfidence and accuracy parameters, the actual location information in aknown format, a trust parameter and a timestamp. The trust parameter isa metric that is assigned by the location service module 602 to one ormore of the location providers and defines the trust that the locationservice module has for the particular location provider. The timestampis a metric that defines the time when the location information wasprovided by the location provider. This assists the location servicemodule 602 in ascertaining whether information is stale and might needrefreshed.

Once the location service module 602 has all of the locationinformation, it can then set about determining the location of thedevice.

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method of determininga device context which, in this example, is the device location. Thesesteps are implemented by the location service module 602.

Step 800 gets the current device context. The current context can be thelast calculated device context that is stored in the cache. Step 802determines whether any of a number of context providers are available toprovide context information. The location service module might do thisby polling the context providers to ascertain which of the providers areactive and valid. Step 804 determines whether all of the providers areinactive. If all of the providers are inactive, step 806 decreases theconfidence in the current context over time and uses the current contextas the device context. Step 802 then continues to monitor for currentactive and valid providers. If step 804 determines that one or more ofthe context providers are active, then step 808 orders the active andvalid context providers. When the location service module 602 orders orsorts the context providers, it does so as a function of the confidenceof the provider's information and/or the trust that the location servicemodule has in the location provider. This provides a ranked list of thelocation providers. Step 810 checks to ascertain whether the contextinformation appears to be correct. For example, where the context is thelocation of the device, the location service module 602 might know thatfive seconds ago the current location was Redmond, Wash. Accordingly,location information that indicates that the current location isBeijing, China would be incorrect. Step 812 then determines whether anyof the context information conflicts with either the device's currentcontext or the context information from other providers. For example,the location service module 602 can compare the context information fromeach of the context providers with the information in the cache. If anyof the information conflicts with the cached information, then theinformation from that context provider can be discarded. Similarly, ifcontext information varies inordinately as between the contextproviders, then step 814 can select the context providers having apredefined level of trust and perhaps use just their information (Step816). If there are no conflicts, then step 816 determines the currentcontext based upon the information that is provided by all of thecontext providers. In the described embodiment, this step is implementedby using the information to map to a particular node in one or more ofthe hierarchical tree structures mentioned above. For example, thelocation of the device can be ascertained by mapping the information toa particular node, and then completely traversing the tree structureuntil the root node is reached. Step 818 then updates the currentcontext by perhaps writing it to the cache and returns to step 802 todetermine the active and valid context providers.

The method described above provides a way for the location servicemodule to receive location information and use only the locationinformation that appears mostly likely to represent a current location.Conflicting information can be discounted or disregarded therebyassuring that only the most trusted, accurate and confident informationis utilized to determine the device's current location.

Self Monitoring

In addition to the confidence and accuracy parameters, one or more ofthe location providers are advantageously programmed to self monitortheir own operation for various irregularities that can occur. On theoccurrence of an irregularity, the location providers are configured tonotify the location service module 602. For example, the source fromwhich the location provider receives its information may go off line fora period of time so that the location provider is unable to receive anyadditional information. In this case, the location provider mightgenerate a “provider out” message and send it to the location servicemodule 602. When the location service module 602 receives the “providerout” message, it can then take steps to exclude the location informationfrom that provider from any location calculations that it performs. Whenthe location provider's source comes back on line, it can generate a“provider on” message that informs the location service module 602 thatit is able to transmit location information to the module. Of course,the location service module can be notified by the location providers onthe occurrence of other operational irregularities, with the aboveexample constituting but one specific case.

Applications

Once the location service module 602 has determined the device'slocation, it can receive queries from one or more applications 608. Inthe FIG. 7 example, the applications include a web site application, anOutlook application, and a service discovery application. In the presentexample, the web site application can be any web site application thatis capable of rendering location-specific services. For example, theuser of the device 602 might access Amazon.com's web site to buy afavorite book. When the user purchases their book, Amazon.com must nowcompute the taxes that the user must pay. In this example, a scriptexecuting on Amazon.com's web site might query device 602 to learn ofthe user's location. In this particular example, the device mightrespond to the query by returning the state in which the user is makingthe purchase. Amazon.com can then assess the tax automatically.Amazon.com might also desire to know where the individual is located sothat they can select an optimal shipping method (UPS or Express Mail).Depending on where the individual is located, one method may bepreferred over the other. The Outlook application might query thelocation service module to ascertain the location because it (or theoperating system, e.g. Windows) may change device settings based on thelocation of the computing device. For example, the user may print on oneparticular printer while at work, and another particular printer when athome. When the Outlook application determines that the user has gonehome for the day, it can automatically change the device settings forthe printer at the user's home. It might acquire the print settings froma personal places data store 714. Thus, the device is automaticallyconfigured for use depending on the user's location. The servicediscovery application might query the device to determine its locationso that it can render a particular service depending on where the deviceis located. For example, if the user asks the application to locate thenearest color printer, the service discovery application might query thelocation service module to ascertain the device's current location sothat it can use this information and find the nearest color printer.Consider also that the Outlook application could configure itself emailto a work location (when an individual is at work) or to a home location(when an individual is at home). In addition, the Outlook calendar canbecome location aware, e.g. when you change time zones, yourappointments would show up in the proper time slots.

As one can imagine, the possibilities are seemingly endless. Thisfunctionality is made possible through the use of the Master World andone or more Secondary Worlds.

Application Program Interface/Events

In the described embodiment, the applications 608 communicate with thelocation service module 602 through one or more application programinterfaces (APIs) and/or events. The applications can make functioncalls on the API to query the location service module as to its currentlocation. Similarly, the applications can register for locationnotifications by using an events registration process. For example, anapplication may register for a notification when the user changes theirlocation. Consider the case where an application requests to be notifiedwhen the user arrives at work or at home so that the application canchange the device's configuration (such as printer configuration).

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment. The steps that are described areimplemented by device 600. Step 900 receives information that pertainsto the current context of the device. In this particular example, aportion of the information is received from one or more contextproviders which, in this case, are location providers. Step 902processes the information on and with the device to ascertain thecurrent context of the device. In the illustrated example, the devicemaintains (or has access to) one or more of the Master World and one ormore Secondary Worlds. When the device receives all of the locationinformation, it maps the information to a particular node in thehierarchical tree structure that defines the Worlds. It then traversesthe tree structures to ascertain the complete context (i.e. location) ofthe device. Step 904 receives calls from one or more applications thatrequest information that pertains to the device's current context orlocation. In the illustrated example, the applications can call one ormore APIs to request the information or the applications can registerfor event notifications. Step 906 then supplies the applications with atleast some information that pertains to the current device location. Aswill be discussed below, a security policy or privacy policy can beapplied to the information before it is returned to the applications.

Privacy Manager

In one embodiment, a privacy manager 704 (FIG. 7) is provided. Althoughthe privacy manager is illustrated as being incorporated on the device,it could be implemented by a trusted entity such as a trusted serverthat is not part of the mobile computing device. The privacy manager canbe implemented in any suitable hardware, software, firmware orcombination thereof. In the illustrated example, the privacy managercomprises a software module that is incorporated in the mobile computingdevice.

The privacy manager 704 addresses privacy concerns that are associatedwith the information that is collected by the computing device.Specifically, the location service module can calculate detailedinformation regarding the location of the computing device. It may bedesirable, in some instances, to filter the information that is providedto various applications. That is, it is entirely likely that a user maynot want their specific location information provided to untrustedapplications. In these instances a user might just desire for locationservice module 602 to inform such applications that the user is in theState of Washington.

FIG. 10 shows a flow diagram that describes steps in a privacyprotection method in accordance with the described embodiment. Thesesteps can be implemented by the privacy manager 704.

Step 1000 defines a plurality of privacy levels. Exemplary privacylevels are set forth in the table immediately below:

Privacy Level Approximate Scale Level of Revelation 0 — No locationinformation is returned 10 100,000 Km Planet/Continent 20 1,000 KmCountry 30 100 Km State 40 10-100 Km City & County or Region 50 10 KmPostal Code & Phone Area Code 60 1 Km Full Postal Code (Zip + 4) & AreaCode and Exchange 70 100 m Phone Number & Building/Floor 80 10 m Room #90 1 m Exact Coordinates

In the illustrated table, 10 different privacy levels are defined andeach has an associated approximate scale. For example, a privacy levelof 0 means that no location information is returned. A privacy level of90 means that very detailed location information is returned.

Step 1002 assigns various privacy levels to the individual nodes in oneor more hierarchical tree structures. For example, each node of theMaster World and the Secondary Worlds can have a privacy levelassociated with it. The root node of the Master World tree structuremight have a privacy level of 10, while the node that represents acurrent location in a Secondary World might have a privacy level of 90.Step 1004 determines the context of the computing device. In the presentexample, the context is the device location and examples of how this isdone are given above. Individual applications that call the locationservice module can have privacy levels associated with them. Theseprivacy levels can be assigned by individual users. For example, atrusted application might have a privacy level of 90, while an untrustedapplication might have a privacy level of 30. Step 1006 receives contextqueries from one or more applications. Here, an application calls thelocation service module 602 (FIG. 7) to ascertain the location of thedevice. Step 1008 determines the privacy level associated with theapplication or applications. For example, if a untrusted applicationcalls to request location information, the privacy manager 704 woulddetermine that the application has a privacy level of 30. The privacymanager then traverses (step 1010) one or more hierarchical treestructures to find a node with a corresponding privacy level so that itcan select the information that is associated with that node. In thisexample, the traversal might involve jumping from the Secondary World tothe Master World to find the node that corresponds to the state in whichthe user is located. Once the corresponding node is found, step 1012returns the context information (e.g. location information) associatedwith the node. In this case, the location service module would informthe application that the user's location is the State of Washington.

As an example, consider the following: There is a web site that gives upto the minute weather of various locations. Accordingly, you mightassign this web site a privacy level of 60 so that you can receiveweather information for the geographical area that corresponds to yourpresent full postal code. Another web site might be a corporationintranet web site that is a trusted web site. Thus, any applicationsassociated with this web site can be assigned a privacy level of 90 sothat you can give them precise location information as to yourwhereabouts.

Thus, in the present example, the computing device is able to determinethe source (i.e. application) of its queries and modulate theinformation that is returned to the application as a function of theapplication's identity. The computing device is able to do this becauseit has access to the Master World and one or more Secondary Worlds. Theabove description constitutes but one exemplary way of accomplishingthis feat.

Location Beacons as a Location Provider

In one embodiment, one of the location providers comprises a locationbeacon that beacons or transmits information to enable a computingdevice to actively participate in its current context. Location beaconscan comprise standalone devices that can be retrofitted onto existinginfrastructures, e.g. a smoke detector or wall outlet in order for thedevice to have a power source.

FIG. 11 shows an exemplary beacon 1100 that is mounted on a structure1102. Structure 1102 can be any suitable structure such as a wall in aconference room or public place, a smoke detector, an electrical socketand the like. In the described embodiment, the location beacons aresmall inexpensive devices that can be permanently mounted in speciallocations such as conference rooms, building lobbies, airport gates,public places and the like. The beacons announce the physical locationin the form of an EID and/or LUID to all mobile devices that are withinrange, such as laptops, tablet PCs, hand held computers, mobile phones,wearable computers and the like.

In the described embodiment, the location beacon can identify theparticular locations by beaconing standard information that will beunderstood by the mobile computing devices. In the present example, thebeacons can transmit one or two location identifier pairs comprising anEID/URL pair and a LUID/URL pair. The beacon might also transmitmultiple LUIDs. The EID and LUID give the present node location in theMaster World and Secondary World respectively. The URLs provide areachable location for the Master and Secondary Worlds. For example, theURL associated with the Secondary World can give a service location thatthe device can use to query information about the Secondary World sothat it can derive its context and take advantage of resources orservices that are associated with the nodes in the Secondary World.

The beacons can also transmit a digital signature that can be used bythe device to ascertain that the beacon is valid and legitimate. Anysuitable signature or verification method could be used. In addition,and of particular use in the context-aware environment, the beacon canbe programmed to transmit code download pointers to devices withinrange. The code download pointers can enable the computing device toaccess software code that permits them to interact with theirenvironment. Consider the following example: You walk into a conferenceroom with your cell phone computing device and immediately a beacon inthe conference room transmits your location in the form of an EID/URLpair and a LUID/URL pair. Your device uses the information pairs toascertain its location in the Master and Secondary Worlds as describedabove. The beacon also transmits a code download pointer that points tosoftware code that enables you to operate the video projector in theconference room using your hand-held cellular phone. In this manner, thebeacon serves as more than just a location beacon—it permits you,through your computing device, to actively participate in yoursurroundings.

The beacons can transmit the information in any suitable way, e.g.wireless methods including infrared and radio frequencies. In oneembodiment, Bluetooth short range radio frequency communication can beused to provide a low cost, low power alternative.

Context-Aware Vehicle

FIG. 12 shows an exemplary vehicle (e.g., automobile) computer system1200 that can be used in connection with the context-aware systems andmethods described above and below. System 1200 is configured for use ina vehicle such as a car, truck or other similar conveyance. When inplace in a vehicle, computer system 1200 can provide a multitude ofcontext-aware services as will become apparent below.

Vehicle computer system 1200 has a centralized computer 1202 coupled tovarious external peripheral devices, including a display device 1204,security sensors 1206, a vehicle diagnostic interface 1208, speakers1210, a vehicle battery 1212, a backup battery 1214, and antenna(s)1216. The computer 1202 is assembled in a housing 1218 that is sized tobe mounted in a vehicle dashboard, similar to a conventional automobilestereo. In the illustrated example, the housing 1218 has a form factorof a single DIN (Deutsche Industry Normen). Alternatively, it could behoused in a 2 DIN unit or other special form factor for an OEM.

The computer 1202 runs an open platform operating system which supportsmultiple applications. Using an open platform operating system and anopen computer system architecture, various software applications andhardware peripherals can be produced by independent vendors andsubsequently installed by the vehicle user after purchase of thevehicle. This is advantageous in that the software applications do notneed to be specially configured for uniquely designed embedded systems.In the illustrated example the open hardware architecture runs amultitasking operating system that employs a graphical user interface. Amultitasking operating system allows simultaneous execution of multipleapplications. One such operating system is the “Windows” brand ofoperating systems (e.g., the “Windows CE” operating system) sold byMicrosoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.

The computer 1202 can include at least one storage drive which permitsthe vehicle user to download programs and data from a storage medium. Inthe illustrated implementation, the computer 1202 has a CD ROM (or otheroptical) drive 1220 which reads application-related CDs, as well asmusical, video, game, or other types of entertainment CDs. The computer1202 may also include other storage devices, such as a magnetic diskdrive, smart card reader, PCMCIA card sockets, a hard disk drive, or aDVD (“digital video disk” or “digital versatile disk”) drive.

The storage drives are mounted in a base unit 1228 of the housing 1218.The base unit 1228 is constructed and sized to be mounted in thedashboard. Optionally, this base unit may be removable in the samefashion as a laptop computer and its associated docking station. Thisoption allows the user to take the vehicle computer to his/her home oroffice to serve as his/her portable PC. The housing 1218 also has afaceplate 1230 which is pivotally mounted to the front of the base unit1228 and may optionally be detachable. The faceplate can be rotated topermit easy and convenient access to the storage drives.

The computer 1202 has a keypad 1232 and a display 1234 on the faceplate1230. The operating system executing on the computer 1202 controls thefaceplate peripheral, which, through the faceplate processor, cancontrol the faceplate keys 1232 and the faceplate display 1234 asperipheral devices when the faceplate is attached to the base unit.Additionally, the computer 1202 has a voice recognition device to permitthe user to verbally enter commands in a hands-free, eyes-freeenvironment. These voice commands can be used for controlling mostoperating modes of the vehicle computing platform. The computer 1202 isalso equipped with an IrDA (infrared developers association) transceiverport 1236 mounted on the faceplate 1230 to transmit and receive data andprograms using infrared signals. The entire faceplate unit 1230 behavesas a multifunction peripheral to the computing platform.

The computer 1202 can output visual data to the LCD 1234 at thefaceplate, or to the display device 1204. In the exemplary illustration,display 1234 is a back lit LCD and display 1204 is a small flat paneldisplay (e.g., 6.4″ screen) that is movably mounted on a stand or yokeand remotely located from the computer. Additional display devices mayalso be added that are similar to display 1204 or 1234. Different typesof display devices may also be added, such as a Heads Up Display (HUD).

The display 1204 is fully adjustable to different viewing positions thatcan be seen by the driver or other passengers in the vehicle. The typeof data displayed can range widely from word instructions concerning thevehicle's performance, to diagrammatic directions from a navigationsystem, to video movies for in-car entertainment. The display 1204 canbe equipped with an automatic override switch 1238 which automaticallydisables the display of any non-driving related data when positioned tobe viewed by the driver. When facing the driver, only informationsupportive and helpful to driving (e.g., diagnostics, navigationdirections) is displayed on the monitor, while distracting information(e.g., video movies, games) is blocked from display. In oneimplementation, the switch is an electrical cylindrical switch whichcloses when the display is capable of being viewed by the driver; thus,the software can sense the display position and only allow permittedinformation to be displayed.

In general, the vehicle computer system 1200 can be used to integratemultiple vehicle-related systems onto one open platform hardware andsoftware architecture. For instance, the vehicle computer system 1200can serve as a multimedia entertainment system, a navigation system, acommunications system, a security system, and a diagnostics system.Moreover, the vehicle computer system 1200 provides additionalfunctionality traditionally associated with desk-top and laptop personalcomputers. For instance, vehicle computer system 1200 can support wordprocessing applications, spreadsheet applications, databaseapplications, web browser applications, and appointment/scheduleapplications. Furthermore, the vehicle computer system 1200 can beconfigured to operate as a server to other computing units in thevehicle to distribute games, video movies, and the like to passengers.Furthermore, the system includes an internet connectivity engine 1240that is configured to establish connectivity with the Internet. This canbe done in any suitable way. For example, the internet connectivityengine 1240 can wirelessly establish connectivity with the Internetthrough known wireless techniques.

In accordance with the described embodiment, information can bedisplayed on either display device 1204 or display 1234. The informationcan be provided by an application running on computer 1202, or by adevice external to computer 1202, such as sensors 1206 or via diagnosticinterface 1208, antenna 1216, IrDA port 1236, etc. Such information canalso be provided to the computer via the internet connectivity engine1240. Information that can be displayed includes any type of data orcontrol information. Additionally, information to be displayed caninclude a “caption” or “label” that describes the data. Examples of datathat can be displayed include street addresses, phone numbers, anddirections (e.g., “Turn Left At Light On Main Street”). Such data can bedisplayed either including a caption describing the data (e.g.,“Address: 12345 Washington Street”, where “Address:” is the captionportion of the information) or without a caption (e.g., “12345Washington Street”). Examples of control information include toolbars,menu options, and user-selectable on-screen regions (such as buttons),as well as instructions, headings, and other descriptive information.

In the discussion herein, the various embodiments are described in thegeneral context of computer-executable instructions, such as programmodules, being executed by one or more conventional personal computers.Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects,components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks orimplement particular abstract data types. Moreover, those skilled in theart will appreciate that the described embodiments can be practiced withother computer system configurations, including hand-held devices,multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumerelectronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and thelike. In a distributed computer environment, program modules may belocated in both local and remote memory storage devices.

FIG. 13 shows exemplary components of computer 1202 of FIG. 12 in moredetail. Computer 1202 includes one or more processors or processingunits 1352, a system memory 1354, and a bus 1356 that couples varioussystem components including the system memory 1354 to processors 1352.

The bus 1356 represents one or more of any of several types of busstructures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheralbus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus usingany of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory 1354 includesread only memory (ROM) 1358 and random access memory (RAM) 1360. Aportion of the operating system, such as kernel 1362, contains the basicroutines that help to transfer information between elements withincomputer 1202, such as during start-up, is stored in ROM 1358.

A number of program modules can be stored in ROM 1358 or RAM 1360,including an operating system 1364 and one or more application programs1366. A user may enter commands and information into computer 1202through various input devices, such as a keyboard (e.g., keypad 1232 ofFIG. 12), touchscreen, pointing device, microphone, joystick, game pad,satellite dish, scanner, or the like (not shown in FIG. 13). These andother input devices are coupled to the processing unit 1352 through aninput/output (I/O) interface 1368 that is coupled to the bus 1356. Adisplay 1204 or 1234, or other type of display device, is also connectedto the bus 1356 via an interface, such as a video adapter(s) 1370. Datato be displayed on display 1204 or 1234 is provided to adapter 1370 by adisplay generator 1372 of operating system 1364. In addition to thedisplay, computers can include other peripheral output devices (notshown in FIG. 13) such as speakers and printers that are coupled to theprocessing unit 1352 through I/O interface 1368.

Generally, the processors of computer 1202 are programmed by means ofinstructions stored at different times in the various computer-readablestorage media of the computer. Programs and operating systems aretypically distributed, for example, on floppy disks or CD-ROMs. Fromthere, they are installed or loaded into the secondary memory of acomputer. At execution, they are loaded at least partially into thecomputer's primary electronic memory. For example, the above-describedcontext and location service can be stored in this manner so as topermit the computer to make full use of the context-aware(location-aware) applications described above and below.

The embodiments described herein include these and other various typesof computer-readable storage media when such media contain instructionsor programs for implementing the steps described below in conjunctionwith a microprocessor or other data processor. The described embodimentsalso include the computer itself when programmed according to themethods and techniques described below. Furthermore, certainsub-components of the computer may be programmed to perform thefunctions and steps described below. The described embodiments includesuch sub-components when they are programmed as described. In addition,the described embodiments include data structures, described below, asembodied on various types of memory media.

For purposes of illustration, programs and other executable programcomponents such as the operating system are illustrated herein asdiscrete blocks, although it is recognized that such programs andcomponents reside at various times in different storage components ofthe computer, and are executed by the data processor(s) of the computer.

Exemplary Context-based Architecture

FIG. 14 shows an exemplary architecture 1400 that can be utilized toimplement a context-aware vehicle. Some of the components of thearchitecture are similar to or the same as components that have alreadybeen discussed above. To this extent, these components are not describedin additional detail here. These components include an applicationprogram interface/events component 1402, context service module 1404,context provider interface 1406, and privacy manager 1408.

Additional components that are germane to this discussion include one ormore applications 1410 that are executable on the vehicle's computer,one or more context providers 1412, a context data store 1414, and abehavior engine 1418.

Applications 1410 can include any suitable applications that are capableof being executed in connection with a vehicle such as an automobile.Exemplary applications can include those that are used to implement orbe used in connection with audio/visual equipment or peripheral devicessuch as the radio, entertainment devices, visual displays, temperatureregulation devices, and various controllers that can be associated withequipment on the vehicle, to name just a few.

The context providers 1412 can be any suitable context providers thatare capable of providing context information, via the context providerinterface 1406 and context service module 1404, to the behavior engine1418. Context providers can include such things as environmental sensors(e.g. light, heat, smog and the like). It will be appreciated thatalthough the context providers are shown as being on the computingdevice itself (i.e. located on the vehicle), the context providers canbe located off of the vehicle. For example, context providers canbroadcast wireless context information for receipt by the computingdevice.

Context store 1414 can store per-user context preferences that areavailable locally and/or it can cache per-user context preferences thatare present somewhere outside the vehicle. This store can also be usedto store context preference information that is common to all users(per-vehicle). This store can also be used to temporarily store all thecontext data that is being provided by the various context providers.This way, the behavior engine can act on this data at a later time,rather than instantaneously. In addition, the store can hold per-vehicledata. User-specific context information can pertain to any suitable typeof context information. As an example, the user might provide theirpreferences for seat settings, vehicle temperature, vehicle interiorlighting, radio volume and the like. These preferences can be maintainedon the vehicle in a vehicle store, or externally of the vehicle in, forexample, a network accessible data store (e.g. a data store accessiblevia a Web server).

Behavior engine 1418 comprises a software module that receives contextinformation from one or more sources and manipulates in some way orcauses the behavior of the vehicle to be manipulated. Manipulation ofthe vehicle's behavior can manifest itself, in the illustrated example,through settings or other parameters that are passed from the behaviorengine 1418 to one or more applications 1410 and that affect thebehavior of the vehicle. The settings or parameters thus cause theapplication to function, in some way, in a manner that is unique to thecontext in which the vehicle is determined to be.

As an example consider the following: A vehicle is traveling on a longtrip that started early in the morning. As dusk approaches, a contextprovider 1412 in the form of a light sensor provides information to thecontext service module 1404 which, in turn, ascertains that outsidelighting conditions are sufficient to require the headlights to beturned on. Accordingly, the behavior engine 1418 causes the applicationassociated with the headlights to turn the headlights on. In thisspecific example, the behavior engine can also cause the applicationassociated with the driver's display to change the light contrastsetting so that the driver can more easily view the display. Thissolution, as well as the other solutions described below, can beadvantageously implemented in software so that the necessity of buildingany hardwired hardware solutions is eliminated.

As another example, consider the following: While traveling in acontext-aware vehicle, the vehicle enters an area where there is a largeamount of smog. A context provider in the form of a smog sensor providesinformation to the context service modules which, in turn, determinesthat smoggy conditions exist. As a result, the behavior engine 1418causes the application 1410 associated with the vehicle's ventilationsystem to automatically shut off the outside supply of air.

FIG. 15 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment. The method can be implemented in anysuitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof. In theillustrated example, the method is implemented in software. In aspecific implementation, this method can be implemented in connectionwith the architecture shown in FIG. 14.

Step 1500 receives context information. This information can compriseany suitable type of information and can be received in any suitableway. For example, the context information can comprise user-specificinformation. This user-specific information can be received from a userwho physically enters the information into the vehicle's computer.Alternately, the user-specific information can be retrieved from a datastore, either onboard or remote from the vehicle. If the information isonboard the vehicle, the information can simply be retrieved fromwhatever data store holds the information. If the information ismaintained remote from the vehicle (e.g. in a Web-accessible datastore), the information can then be retrieved in any suitable way suchas via a wireless connection with the Web that is then used to accessthe remote data store and retrieve the information.

The context information can also comprise information associated withthe vehicle's operating environment and can be gleaned from variousdifferent sensors that can be provided on the vehicle. Examples of thisare given above.

Step 1502 determines, from the context information, a current vehiclecontext. This step can be implemented by a context service module suchas module 1404 in FIG. 14. The current context can be determined byascertaining the current vehicle user. The current context can also bedetermined by making a decision, based upon the context information,about the likely context of the vehicle. For example, if the contextinformation suggests that it is likely dark outside of the vehicle, adecision concerning the current context can be made with anascertainable degree of certainty. Based on the current vehicle context,the behavior of the vehicle can then be modified in some way or mannerthat is consistent with the vehicle's current context (step 1504). Thisstep can be implemented by a behavior engine such as engine 1418 in FIG.14. The behavior engine receives information from the context servicemodule 1404 indicating the current vehicle context. Based on this, thebehavior engine can cause settings or other parameters to be passed toapplications associated with the context so that the applications canmodify the behavior of the vehicle in some way.

Exemplary Location-Based Architecture

FIG. 16 shows an exemplary architecture 1600 that can be utilized toimplement a location-aware vehicle. Some of the components of thearchitecture are similar to or the same as components that have alreadybeen discussed above. To this extent, these components are not describedin additional detail here. These components include an applicationprogram interface/events component 1602, location service module 1604,location provider interface 1606, and privacy manager 1608.

Additional components that are germane to this discussion include one ormore applications 1610 that are executable on the vehicle's computer oron the vehicle itself, one or more location providers 1612, a contextstore 1614, and a behavior engine 1618.

Applications 1610 can include any suitable applications that are capableof being executed in connection with a vehicle such as an automobile.Exemplary applications can include those that are used to implement orbe used in connection with a location-sensitive service. For example,one application can comprise an Internet connectivity application thatestablishes an Internet connection via a local ISP. For example, theInternet connectivity engine 1240 (FIG. 12) can call a toll freetelephone number to get a list of affiliated ISPs and a set of<location, phone number> pairs. This list can also be pre-installed inthe vehicle's computer, or downloaded periodically via that Internet.When the user tries to access the Internet, the Internet connectivityengine 1240 calls the location service module 1604 to ascertain thecurrent location. Based on the current location, the Internetconnectivity engine 1240 selects an access number that is local to thearea in which the vehicle is located. As the vehicle moves betweenlocations, the Internet connectivity engine 1240 can get locationupdates and update its local access number. Another application cancontrol the radio and its various settings, as will be discussed in moredetail below in the section entitled “Radio Station Settings”.

The location providers 1612 can be any suitable location providers thatare capable of providing location information, via the location providerinterface 1606 and location service module 1604, to the behavior engine1618. Exemplary location providers are discussed above. In vehicle-basedapplications, however, one source of location information comprises aGPS source that provides GPS information to an onboard locationprovider.

Context store 1614 can store per-user location preferences that areavailable locally and/or it can cache per-user location preferences thatare present somewhere outside the vehicle. This store can also be usedto store location preference information that is common to all users(per-vehicle). This store can also be used to temporarily store all thelocation data that is being provided by the various location providers.This way, the behavior engine can act on this data at a later time,rather than instantaneously. In accordance with the describedembodiment, users can provide user-specific location information that ismaintained in store 1614. This user-specific location information canpertain to any suitable type of location information. As an example, andone that is explored in more detail below, a user might enter theirfavorite radio stations for several different cities that they travel tooften. These preferences can be maintained and, when the locationservice determines the location of the user's vehicle to be one of thesubject cities, the behavior engine 1618 causes the application that isassociated with the station controller to automatically program theradio stations for the new city.

Behavioral engine 1618 comprises a software module that receiveslocation information from one or more sources and manipulates in someway the behavior of the vehicle. Manipulation of the vehicle's behaviorcan manifest itself, in the illustrated example, through settings orother parameters that are passed from the behavior engine to one or moreapplications 1610. The settings or parameters thus cause the applicationto function, in some way, in a manner that is unique to the location inwhich the vehicle is determined to be.

FIG. 17 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith the described embodiment. The method can be implemented in anysuitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof. In theillustrated example, the method is implemented in software. In aspecific implementation, this method can be implemented in connectionwith the architecture shown in FIG. 16.

Step 1700 receives location information. This information can compriseany suitable type of information and can be received in any suitableway. For example, the location information can comprise user-specificinformation. This user-specific information can be received from a userwho physically enters the information. Alternately, the user-specificinformation can be retrieved from a data store, either onboard or remotefrom the vehicle. If the information is onboard the vehicle, theinformation can simply be retrieved from whatever data store holds theinformation. If the information is maintained remote from the vehicle(e.g. in a Web-accessible data store), the information can then beretrieved in any suitable way such as via a wireless connection with theWeb.

Step 1702 determines, from the location information, a current vehiclelocation. This step can be implemented by a location service module suchas module 1604 in FIG. 16. Based on the current vehicle location, thebehavior of the vehicle is modified in some way (step 1704). This stepcan be implemented by a behavior engine such as engine 1618 in FIG. 16.The behavior engine receives information from the location servicemodule 1604 indicating the current vehicle location. Based on this, thebehavior engine can cause settings or other parameters to be passed toapplications associated with the location so that the applications canmodify the behavior of the vehicle in some way.

Radio Station Settings

In one embodiment, a user can specify radio stations and locationsassociated with those radio stations. Based on the location of thevehicle, the user-specified radio stations for the particular radiostations are mapped automatically to the buttons of the radio when thevehicle's location coincides with a location specified by the user. Asan example, consider the following: Assume that 950 AM is the all-sportsradio channel in Seattle and 880 AM is the all-sports radio channel inPortland. Further assume that the user has specified that button #1 ofthe radio is to be associated with 950 AM when his vehicle is located inSeattle and 880 AM when his vehicle is located in Portland. These userspecifications are referred to as the user's preferences. The user'spreferences are stored in an accessible location such as a per-userlocation store 1614. Assume now that the user has to travel fromPortland to Seattle on business. When the location service on board theuser's vehicle ascertains that the vehicle's location is Seattle, thebehavior engine 1618 causes the application associated with the radiostation controller to map Seattle station 950 to button #1 of the radio.This happens automatically without the need for any user intervention.

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment. The method can be implemented in anysuitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof. In thedescribed embodiment, the method is implemented in software. Suitablesoftware is described above in connection with FIGS. 16 and 17.

Step 1800 associates one or more radio stations with one or morelocations. This step can be implemented by a user establishing such anassociation by inputting their preferences into the vehicle's computer.This step can also be implemented by a user storing their preferences insome other location that is accessible by the vehicle's computer (e.g. aWeb-accessible location). The preferences are then stored in a per-userlocation store such as the one described above. The store can either beonboard a vehicle or remote from the vehicle. If the store is remotefrom the vehicle, then the vehicle's computer can establish a suitableconnection, for example via the Internet, and fetch the user'spreferences. Step 1802 determines the location of the vehicle. Anysuitable method or technique can be used to determine the vehicle'slocation. In this specific example, a location service, implemented insoftware, can be used. Recall that the location service discussed inthis document makes use of hierarchical tree structures in the form ofPrimary and Secondary Worlds that permit the location service toascertain its location based upon input from one or more locationproviders. Once the location is determined, radio stations that areassociated with that location are mapped (step 1804) to radio stationbuttons on the vehicle's radio. This step is implemented, in the presentexample, through the interaction between the behavior engine 1618 and anappropriate application 1610 that manages the mapping of the radiostations. Once the mapping has taken place, the user is free to selectfrom among the station that they previously specified. Step 1806 thendetermines whether the vehicle is at a new location. If so, the methoddetermines the new location through the use of the location service andthen branches to step 1804 to map any new stations associated with thenew location to the radio's buttons. If there is no new location, themethod does nothing and simply returns to step 1806.

The embodiment described immediately above provides a system andmethodology by which a user can make radio station preferences fordifferent locations known to the user. These known preferences are thenenforced automatically as a function of a vehicle's location.

In certain circumstances, however, individuals may be unaware of thespecific radio stations in all of the potential locations to which theymay travel that play the type of music or content to which they desireto listen. For example, an individual may not know the specific radiostations in Fresno, San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Diego that playthe type of music that they prefer. Accordingly, one embodiment allowsthe user to associate each of the radio buttons with a radio stationtype. Exemplary radio station types include, without limitation, thosethat play light rock, heavy metal, all-news, all-sports, classical, talkshows and the like. The vehicle's computer maintains or has access to alist that associates radio station types, location, and radio stationfrequency (i.e. station number). This list can be resident on thevehicle's computer, or can be periodically downloaded from the Internet.Now, when a user travels from location to location, the location servicedetermines the vehicle's location as described above, and notifies thevehicle's behavior engine. The behavior engine then causes theappropriate application that manages the radio station selections to mapthe new radio station frequencies (or settings) to appropriate buttonson the vehicle's radio. In this way, a user need simply specify radiostation types and need not know specific radio station settings.

FIG. 19 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment. The method can be implemented in anysuitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof. In thedescribed embodiment, the method is implemented in software. Suitablesoftware is described above in connection with FIGS. 16 and 17.

Step 1900 associates at least one radio station type with a radiobutton. This step can be implemented by a user specifying theirassociations or preferences. For example, hard-rock can be associatedwith button #1, soft rock with button #2, and so on. These associationsor preferences are then either maintained by or accessible to thevehicle's computer. Step 1902 determines the vehicle's location. Thisstep can be implemented as described above. Step 1904 maps, for a givenlocation, each radio station frequency for a radio station type to aradio station button. So, for example, as a user drives from SanFrancisco to San Diego, their preferences for radio station types (i.e.classical, rock, sports and the like) are automatically and seamlesslymade available to the user via the radio buttons.

Location-based Information

In another embodiment, the location of a vehicle is utilized as thebasis to provide the driver with information that can be of interest tothem. Specifically, the location service onboard the vehicle determinesthe vehicle's location as set forth above. Once the location of thevehicle is ascertained, various information associated with orpertaining to that location or locations nearby can be presented to thedriver. This information can be any information that might be ofinterest to the driver. For example, such information can include,without limitation, upcoming weather, traffic reports, rest stops,suggestions regarding food, gas stations, scenic viewpoints and thelike. As an example, consider the following: A user indicates in theirpreferences that they prefer to fill their car with gas from Texacostations only. While traveling on a trip, the location servicedetermines the vehicle's location. In conjunction with determining thevehicle's location, an application executing on the vehicle's computerinforms the driver that there are 3 Texaco stations within the next 100miles, and the distance to each of the stations. The location servicecan ascertain this through the use of Primary and Secondary Worldstructures as well as IDs that are associated with each of the Texacostations, as described above in detail. It will be appreciated that theinformation that is provided to the user is different from and, in somecases independent of known navigation information (i.e. street maps anddirectional information and the like). The information that is providedto the users can be associated with one or more user-specifiedpreferences. For example, the user might have specified that they onlylike to eat at Denny's, Stuckeys, and McDonald's while on the road.Accordingly, once the location service determines the location of theuser's vehicle, the user can be advised of the nearest Denny's,Stuckeys, and McDonald's.

FIG. 20 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment. The method can be implemented in anysuitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof. In thedescribed embodiment, the method is implemented in software.

Step 2000 determines a vehicle location. Location can be determined asdescribed above. Step 2002 provides location-specific information forthe user or driver of the vehicle. This information can be provided inany suitable way. In one particularly useful implementation, thelocation-specific information can be provided via a display that theuser can view. The location-specific information can be information thatis generally provided to all drivers (i.e. upcoming viewpoints, reststops etc.). Alternately, the information can be user-specific and canbe based on user-provided preferences.

User as a Context

In one embodiment, one context of a vehicle comprises the user ordriver, as was mentioned above. That is, each user or driver is presumedto have preferences that are associated with a user-specific experiencethat they desire when they use the vehicle. For example, one user mighthave desired seat settings, while another driver might have differentseat settings. When the context is location, different drivers mighthave different preferences that indicate where they desire to eat,points of interest, radio station types, and the like.

Consider the case when the vehicle is a rental car. In this instance,the vehicle is subject to use by a large number of users. Each user mostassuredly will have different preferences that govern their userexperience.

FIG. 21 is a flow diagram that describes steps in a method in accordancewith one described embodiment. The method can be implemented in anysuitable hardware, software, firmware, or combination thereof. In thedescribed embodiment, the method is implemented in software.

In accordance with one embodiment, user preferences are collected (step2100) and stored (step 2102) or otherwise maintained in avehicle-accessible location. For example, if the vehicle is a familycar, the preferences of family drivers might be stored in a locallymaintained store. If the vehicle is a rental car, the preferences mightbe stored in a large preference store remote from the vehicle. Oneexample of a remote store is one that is accessible via the Internetthrough, for example, a Web server. For example, FIG. 22 shows a systemgenerally at 2200 that comprises multiple vehicles 2202. Each vehicle isequipped with a vehicle computer 2204 such as that described above. Acentral server 2206 is accessible via the Internet and has access to adata store 2208 in which user preferences are stored. Each vehicle'scomputer can wirelessly access the Internet, as described above, so thatthe computer can gain access to various user preferences.

In this embodiment, a user of the vehicle first authenticates oridentifies themselves to the vehicle (step 2104) at which point theirpreferences are retrieved (step 2106). As noted above, the preferencescan be retrieved from a local storage location, or from a remote storagelocation. A user can authenticate themselves in any suitable way. Forexample, a password might be used. Alternately, an authenticationservice like Microsoft's Passport service might be used whichauthenticates the user via the Internet. Further, alternately,authentication can be implemented through fingerprinting techniques,voice recognition, or any other suitable biometrics techniques. Consideralso the following example. A user is a rental car customer and isissued a “Preferred” card. This preferred card uniquely identifies theuser. When the user rents a car, the attendant at the rental car counterswipes their card through a card reader which identifies the customer.Based on the customer's identity, a computer retrieves the customer'spreferences from a store and communicates the preferences to a car thatis waiting for the customer.

Once the user is authenticated and the user's preferences are retrieved,the behavior engine (1418 or 1618) causes applications executing on thevehicle's computer and which are associated with the subject of theuser's preference, to provide a user-specific experience (step 2108).This user-specific experience can involve everything from adjusting theseat settings, to automatically mapping radio station types to radiobuttons, to providing location-specific information that may likely beof interest to the user. In the rental car example above, when thecustomer arrives at their car, their preferences have already beenimplemented and a user-friendly car is waiting.

Accordingly, by maintaining or having access to user-specifiedpreferences, the user's vehicle experience can be automatically tailoredto a user's likes, while avoiding a user's dislikes. User convenience isenhanced in that once their preferences are established, they need notworry about configuring a vehicle to suit their preferences. This canall be done automatically for them.

CONCLUSION

The embodiments described above provide a uniform, standardized way toenhance the world of context aware computing. The embodiments provide away for individuals to uniquely experience the world around them byascertaining their location in the world in a standard way. Theembodiments also provide a way for service providers to uniquelyposition their goods and services in a manner that is sensitive to andappreciates the contexts, e.g. locations, of various consumers of thegoods and services. Unique and useful architectures and data structuresare employed to facilitate the user's computing experience and providefor an individual-centric experience.

Although the invention has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological steps, it is to be understoodthat the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarilylimited to the specific features or steps described. Rather, thespecific features and steps are disclosed as preferred forms ofimplementing the claimed invention.

1. A location-aware system comprising: a radio having radio stationbuttons for selecting a radio station; a computer operably associatedwith the radio and configured to be mounted in a vehicle, the computercomprising one or more processors and computer-readable media associatedwith the one or more processors; one or more applications resident onthe computer-readable media and configured to be executed on the one ormore processors, one application being configured to map individualradio stations to specific radio station buttons; one or more locationproviders operably associated with the computer and configured toprovide location information for use in determining a vehicle location;a location service module configured to receive location informationfrom the one or more location providers and determine a vehicle locationby accessing a first hierarchical tree structure resident on thecomputer-readable media and having multiple nodes each of which beingassociated with a location, the location service module being configuredto determine the vehicle location by accessing the first hierarchicaltree structure and traversing at least one of said nodes, the locationservice module being further configured to obtain organizationalinformation about an organization associated with the vehicle locationby accessing a second hierarchical tree structure touch pointing into atleast one node of the first hierarchical tree structure, the secondhierarchical tree structure having multiple nodes, each of whichassociated with one or more organizations, the location service modulebeing configured to obtain the organization information by traversing atleast one of the nodes of the second hierarchical tree structure; and abehavior engine operably associated with the computer and configured to,responsive to a vehicle location and organizational information that isdetermined by the location service module, cause said one application tomap radio stations that are associated with a determined location andthe obtained organizational information to individual radio stationbuttons.
 2. The location-aware system of claim 1, further comprising adata store communicatively linked with the computer and configured tohold user preferences that associate radio stations with variouslocations.
 3. The location-aware system of claim 1, further comprising adata store remote from a vehicle in which the computer is mounted andcommunicatively linked with the computer and configured to hold userpreferences that associate radio stations with various locations.
 4. Alocation-aware vehicle comprising: a radio having radio station buttonsfor selecting a radio station; means for determining a location of avehicle by accessing a first hierarchical tree structure having multiplenodes each of which being associated with a location, the means fordetermining the location of the vehicle being configured to determinethe location of the vehicle by accessing the first hierarchical treestructure and traversing at least one of said nodes; means for obtainingorganizational information about an organization associated with thelocation of the vehicle by accessing a second hierarchical treestructure touch pointing into at least one node of the firsthierarchical tree structure, the second hierarchical tree structurehaving multiple nodes, each of which associated with one or moreorganizations, the means for obtaining organizational information beingconfigured to obtain organization information by traversing at least oneof the nodes of the second hierarchical tree structure; means forascertaining radio stations that are associated with a determinedlocation and the organizational information; and means for automaticallymapping the ascertained radio stations to the radio station buttons; andmeans for determining when a vehicle location has changed, said meansfor ascertaining being configured to ascertain radio stations that areassociated with a new location, said means for automatically mapping theascertained radio stations being configured to automatically map radiostations associated with the new location to the radio station buttons.5. A method of operating a vehicle comprising: determining a location ofa vehicle using a computer that is mounted in the vehicle to access afirst hierarchical tree structure having multiple nodes each of whichbeing associated with a location and determine the location of thevehicle by accessing the first hierarchical tree structure andtraversing at least one of said nodes; obtaining organizationalinformation about an organization associated with the location of thevehicle by accessing a second hierarchical tree structure touch pointinginto at least one node of the first hierarchical tree structure, thesecond hierarchical tree structure having multiple nodes, each of whichassociated with one or more organizations, the organizationalinformation being obtained by traversing at least one of the nodes ofthe second hierarchical tree structure; for a given location,automatically mapping, using the computer, radio station that areassociated with the determined location and the obtained organizationalinformation to radio station buttons on the radio; and retrievinguser-specified preferences from a remote data store by establishing anInternet connection and then retrieving the preferences using theInternet connection, the preferences being used to determine which radiostations to mare to the radio station buttons.
 6. One or morecomputer-readable media having computer-readable instructions thereonwhich, when executed by a computer, implement the method of claim
 5. 7.A vehicle having a programmable computer that is programmed withinstructions which, when executed by the computer, implement the methodof claim
 5. 8. A method of operating a vehicle comprising: determining alocation of a vehicle by using a computer that is mounted in the vehicleto access a first hierarchical tree structure having multiple nodes eachof which being associated with a location and determine the location ofthe vehicle by accessing the first hierarchical tree structure andtraversing at least one of said nodes; obtaining organizationalinformation about an organization associated with the location of thevehicle by accessing a second hierarchical tree structure touch pointinginto at least one node of the first hierarchical tree structure, thesecond hierarchical tree structure having multiple nodes each of whichassociated with one or more organizations, the organization informationbeing obtained by traversing at least one of the nodes of the secondhierarchical tree structure; for a given location, automaticallymapping, using the computer, radio stations associated withuser-specified radio station types associated with the determinedlocation and the obtained organizational information to radio stationbuttons on the radio; and accessing a list that associates radio stationtypes, locations and radio station frequencies so that the radiostations can be mapped to the radio station buttons.
 9. The method ofclaim 8 further comprising accessing a list that is resident on thecomputer that associates radio station types, locations and radiostation frequencies so that the radio stations can be mapped to theradio station buttons.
 10. The method of claim 8 further comprisingaccessing a list via the Internet with the computer, the listassociating radio station types, locations and radio station frequenciesso that the radio stations can be mapped to the radio station buttons.11. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readableinstructions thereon which, when executed by a computer, implement themethod of claim
 8. 12. A vehicle having a programmable computer that isprogrammed with instructions which, when executed by the computer,implement the method of claim 8.